Ghost Story
The Psychedelic Furs have changed..and how. Listen to "The Ghost in You," the first hit single from the group's current Mirror Moves LP, and you'll hear a truly haunting, obsessive love song and quite a pretty one at that. Which is certainly a departure for singer-lyricist Richard Butler, a songwriter who once used the word "stupid" over a dozen times on one album!
"Yeah, it must be old age creeping up on me," chuckles Richard, who is still on the bright side of 30. "I'm less bitter now. Those first two albums [The Psychedelic Furs and Talk Talk Talk] were like primal therapy, you know, when you let everything out in one long scream fueled by frustration and anger. But having screamed it out, then gone out on tour and screamed it out in front of people, I think I got rid of all that. I think this new album proves how that sort of therapy works.”
"You could say that 'The Ghost in You' is a love song, where I think that would have been hard to say about any of our songs in the past." But what about such touching Furs songs as "Into You Like a Train" and "I Wanna Sleep With You?" Richard cracks up. "Those are lust songs. Actually, 'Into You Like a Train' is a lot less lewd that it sounds. But this time, we decided to make the sound cleaner and the lyrics simpler as well. I don't enjoy leaving all the double meanings behind, but I do want to be easily understood."
Misunderstanding is something the Furs now down to a trio with Butler's bassist brother Tim and guitarist John Ashton, are pretty familiar with. It took sheer nerve to name a band the Psychedelic anything in the punky London scene of 1977. "All the other bands then had violent names like the Clash, the Stranglers and the Damned. We wanted something that would make us stick out," Richard says of the Furs' rough gestation period. "Besides, people were saying that the 1960s were rubbish and we disagreed. A lot of our influences like Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground came from then."
Dylan's influence can be heard loud and clear in Richard's intricate wordplay and snidely insightful singing. (Ironically, the Great Folkie himself offered the Furs a new original called "Clean Cut Kid," but the Furs graciously passed because it wasn't up to snuff.) You can also hear the Velvets' harrowing pop-punk onslaught in John and Tim's guitar backdrops.
But the Furs really came into their own around the time of their third LP Forever Now which spawned the dancefloor dazzler "Love My Way." After an extended tour of the States that year, the band packed their bags and settled in New York. Richard, his girlfriend Sherry Jamieson and Tim all share a basement apartment in the Little Italy section of Manhattan. The Furs admit that the city has provided inspiration, musical and otherwise.
"In London nightclubs, younger pop musicians won't talk to older ones," Tim observes, "but in New York you wouldn't be surprised to see Madonna, Robert Fripp and Billy Joel talking to each other." Richard says he doesn't go out barhopping much, preferring to spend nights at home with Sherry. He insists that he'd rather listen to the radio than try to keep up with the latest record releases and then there's television. "On sleepless nights I can get as far as Bob Newhart (on at 4:00 A.M.). And how about those religious programs that are on in the early morning? I saw one recently with Martin Sheen in it. He played God!”
The Furs recently completed a wildly successful U.K. tour-their first dates there in three years. "It was like a homecoming tour!" the Furs' master of lyric sarcasm gushes. "Really, those are the kind of fans we always thought, or hoped, that we had. You know, a lot of pop bands will come up, and make a big killing really fast. Then some other fad takes over and they're left high and dry. It may all sound a little big-headed ...but this band has people's respect."